[MD] MD 4th level - The more autonomous level

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Platt,

Have some free time this afternoon, so I get to respond to this pretty quickly.

First, to clarify, you are suggesting that "consciousness" is an attribute of
existence, that all things have consciousness. Would you then state that the
difference between the consciousness of "Platt" and "Platt's cat" is strictly
one of "contents"? As you say, "Everything has consciousness to one degree or
another" would seem to imply that differences have to do with content, yes?

Or restated, is your consciousness greater than your cat's "in kind" or "in
content"? If "in kind", is that difference genetic-neurobiological, owing to
the genetic differences between cat's brains and Platt's brains? If "in
content", what about the content of your consciousness makes it greater than
your cat's?

You say, "We all have the same "window on" consciousness, i.e., we all
experience", does this include your cat too? Does he "experience"? Or is it a
different "kind" of experience?

If I understand correctly, you answer this when you say, "Experience exists at
all levels. Consciousness exists at all levels. My cat experiences. He is
conscious, but I dare say the content of his conscious is somewhat less than
mine. But regardless, he doesn't belong at the intellectual level because he's
unable to form ideas, i.e., symbols that stand for patterns of meaning."

So, this gets back to the crux of the question at hand. I attribute the greater
content of your consciousness to social mediation (as does Pirsig), you
attribute it to genetic neurobiogical structures that create and use symbols
apart from any contact with other people whatsoever.

For Pirsig, remember, the content your consciousness is dependent on the
collective consciousness. He says, "The mythos-over-logos argument points to
the fact that each child is born as ignorant as any caveman. What keeps the
world from reverting to the Neanderthal with each generation is the continuing,
ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but still mythos, the huge body of
common knowledge that unites our minds as cells are united in the body of man.
To feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or discard this mythos
as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is."

That is, without the "huge body of common knowledge that unites our minds as
cells are united in the body of man", Platt would be no different than a
caveman.

To my question, In your call to rename the "intellectual" level the
"individual", would it not make more sense given the above (consciousness
emerges directly from biology, and is then filled with "contents" somehow
derived from social patterns), to place the "intellectual level" above the
biological level, and then the social level on top? If not, why?

You answered, "Because Pirsig is speaking in generalities, not about the
particular proprietary experience of individuals."

I'm not sure I understand this. Your opinion is that he's "saying" intellect
emerged out of social patterns, but this is a generalization that really means
"intellectual patterns" emerged out of... what? Biology? Since you've stated
that no social mediation is necessary for the development of intellectual
patterns (something opposite of what Pirsig has said), from where do
intellectual patterns arise? Are you suggesting a hierarchy that removes the
social pattern layer altogether?

You continue, "The contents of an individual's consciousness is derived mostly
from memories of unique personal experiences, not from generalized social
patterns such as language."

This is patently false. Helen Keller, for example, had describe her
pre-linguistic state as an unformed black mass, nothing but sensation after
sensation. Her unique experience was that she was linguistically oriented
before she lost her sight and hearing, and she lost the ability to think (her
description). Not until she was given social symbols, through and with
interactions with others, was she able to orient her thought with symbols.

Pirsig's "green flash of the sun" story is one more example of how a cultural
milieu (which includes but is not limited to language) structures the
individual to "see" certain things, and to reprent them in culturally
meaningful ways, while ignoring other things. Another example, studies done
among rural farming villages in southeastern Russia revealed that when given
the following pictures (a saw, a hammer, an axe and a log) the villagers were
unable to see a categorical distinction among them. The classic "one of these
things is not like the other" failed because THEIR conceptualization did not
separate "tool" from "use". The log, they said, had to be included in that list
because what good is an axe if there is no wood.

The point is that language just doesn't provide neutral names for things the
individual might experience, it provides the ability TO represent experience
symbolically, while at the same time structuring this process into culturally
meaningful (socially oriented) representations.

You have obviously bought into the myth Pirsig describes as such, "Science and
reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective world, never from the
social world. The world of objects imposes itself upon the mind with no social
mediation whatsoever." Obviously Pirsig is wise enough to see that the world of
objects imposes itself on the mind through social mediation. Thought comes from
social mediation, not from the world of objects. I think Pirsig is right about
this, you do, of course, disagree.

Finally, you say, "My point all along has been that the mythos exists only
because at each and every step of development, someone was first, followed by
another and another."

And my point all along has been that at each and every step of development, that
"someone" did not walk alone. If s/he did, s/he'd be walking like a caveman.
And that from all these "steps" emerges a trail, that no "one" person could've
forged, or conceived of, or contain. A trail, such as "calculus", that is
greater than any "one" the same way a symphony is greater than any "note".

Arlo